Latest "ping" unlikely to be from missing Malaysia plane MH370, says search official

The latest acoustic signal detected in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was unlikely to be from the missing plane and there had been no major breakthrough in the more than month-long hunt, Australian officials said on Friday.

Analysis of the signal, captured by a listening device buoy and relayed to an Australian ship on Thursday, was unlikely to be related to the aircraft's black boxes, Angus Houston, head of the Australian search, said in a statement.

"On the information I have available to me, there has been no major breakthrough in the search for MH370," Houston added, following unconfirmed reports in some media that the black boxes had been located.

Malaysia Airlines MASM.KL Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished on March 8 and is believed to have flown thousands of kilometres off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route and into the Indian Ocean.